


Trust

by blue_fish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bondage, Community: inception_kink, M/M, Rough Sex, Size Kink, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:59:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_fish/pseuds/blue_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they man who hired them decides to spy on Arthur and Eames to see if they're betraying him, he witnesses a relationship he can't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

The senator was going to die. He was going to die, and the headlines would splash his murder across the pages. Of course, it wouldn't look like a murder. It would look like a scandal instead. He'd be found with coke, or a rent boy, or something that the deep right would want to tie to him in his death, humiliating him. Taking away from the changes he wanted to make. Making him look debased, ruining his family after his death.

"SENATOR ALLEN AUTOPSY RESULTS REVEAL DRUG USE" or something, the headlines would scream.

The senator was going to be murdered, all of his work, destroyed.

The worst part of it was, his best friend, his lifelong ally, was going to do it.

He'd grown up with John Mackie, his best friend since high school and onward. Through his entire college career, his political career, no one had stood by his side the way Mackie had. Through his bout of depression. His drinking binges. His divorce from his first wife. Allen had come clean about all of that. He was fighting the good fight now. Sure, he had to play the political game sometimes. And sure, he had to lie. Had to cheat, steal even, step on people and spy.

Mostly spy.

Because if he couldn't trust Mackie, then he couldn't trust anyone. He hadn't even talked to his wife about this.

He couldn't even trust the team he'd hired to extract the plot out of Mackie's dreams. He had to confront his best friend, but he couldn't do it without proof, and so far, he had none. Just whispers, and the intuition of his own broken heart. He wanted inside of Mackie's head. If they found no plot, no no betrayal lurking there, then senator Allen would let the matter drop, and never, ever doubt his confidant again.

But he knew they would find betrayal.

Since many people were gunning for him – he had received no less than ten death threats in as many days – he had no one to turn to but his own secret resources.

His resources were many, and no one, not even his wife, knew of them.

He'd vetted the extraction team himself. No one, not a single other soul on the planet, knew what he was doing. Or so he planned it, but a man in his position could never know for sure. Maybe someone had found out. Maybe they'd send the team in to turn against him, instead. Steal secrets out of his mind and ruin him before murdering him.

He wiped his eyes, dashing away the tears of a weak man, and opened the files in front of him. Regular paper files, nothing on computers. Computer files were never really destroyed.

He'd tried to get Dom Cobb for the extraction, but Cobb would not be budged. He couldn't be bought, threatened, extorted or anything. He was protected by a mega corporation and didn't have to do anything anyone asked of him, if he didn't want to. Of course, senator Allen could have him killed, if he were that sort of man. He wasn't. There was no reason to even threaten Cobb. If he didn't want to do it, he wouldn't, and Allen had to look elsewhere.

Cobb's former team, they were still working. He'd managed to get a few of them together. A young girl named Ariadne - they called her the architect. She "built" dreams, they said. He didn't know how this dream thing worked, only that the underworld swore by its results. But they said he needed an architect and she was rumored to have worked with Cobb. She was 25, a bright, pretty girl with long brown hair who looked nothing at all like a dream criminal. He hated to bring young people into things like this.

There was a man they called a "forger." This was Mr. Eames. After all of his asking, Allen could not come up with a first name for him. This man was in his 30s, well-traveled and handsome, but with a sly look that showed through in all of the photos Allen had found of him. Apparently he needed a forger because the best way to extract secrets was to have someone impersonate a loved one, or even an enemy, to see how the subject ("the mark," his connections called it,) would react to him. So this forger, this "Mr. Eames," he was some kind of dream shapeshifter. Which was both intriguing and terrifying.

The third and final piece of the team was the extractor, although some of his connections had called him a point man. Allen looked at the picture of this young man – Arthur, no last name that he could dig up – and could not see past his youth. His files said he was 32 but he looked to be in his 20s. He looked small and fine-boned. Allen had served in the military and he knew what it meant to be point. This man, this boy, didn't seem to fit the bill. But he was also the extractor of the team, and that was really what Allen needed most.

The team was to check into a hotel, and the hotel was one of senator Allen's best kept secrets. It would be difficult to trace his ownership of it. And even more difficult to trace back to him the many fine, alarmingly well-hidden cameras and bugs in at least twenty of the rooms.

He admitted even to himself that he was paranoid. But when one knew about this kind of technology, how could one not be paranoid? This could so easily be turned back against him. If he had wired up his hotel, if he could hire people to break into Mackie's mind and steal his secret plans, then anyone could do the same to him.

The team had requested three separate rooms, which Allen provided for them. He fully expected them to ask to change rooms the first few times and he was prepared for it. Surprisingly, only two of them asked to be moved to a different room, each with a different complaint. The girl said that hers smelled like bleach. Mr. Eames complained that his room's thermostat was broken and asked to be switched. Allen later confirmed that the thermostat really was broken – because Mr. Eames had broken it.

Allen was no fool. He had prepared for this and had them switched to two of the other many bugged rooms.

Only Arthur, the extractor, hadn't asked to be changed. This confused him for a while.

The girl arrived first. She checked her room thoroughly as he watched her from monitors, safe in his own tower at the top of the hotel. She was good, thorough. She checked the mirrors, the vents. Took the phone apart, unscrewed the TV and computer.

A few hours later, Allen finally saw Arthur. He came into Ariadne's room and did an even more thorough check. He had instruments with him, sensors that he ran across mirrors and screens, gadgets that he held up in the center of the room, waiting for lights to blink.

But Allen felt no fear of being caught. There were no sensors that could match his technology.

He briefly watched this Arthur, and then when he left the room, he watched Ariadne.

It broke his heart, how young she was. Her eyes were still soft, when she looked into the mirror. She brushed her teeth and put her hair up. He watched her go into the shower, but there was nothing prurient about it. Some people assembled guns in the shower. Some people shot drugs. He had to be sure. He felt no stirrings for her, aside from deep in his chest. This feeling he named regret. She was young enough to be his daughter.

He would only feel like a creep if he got caught.

He switched over to Arthur's room, the one that hadn't been changed. No one was in it, though. He knew that the young man was in the building, but he hadn't gone to his room.

He switched to Mr. Eames.

Ah. There. This man – his forger – was walking around the room, unsettling the coverlet, checking through drawers, closets, tapping on glass. He was exceedingly handsome, oddly better looking when he moved, than in photographs.

To Allen's surprise, Arthur was in the room with him. It finally made sense. He hadn't needed to change rooms because he would probably stay here. They were going to work together, Allen guessed.

He turned up the sound, but both men were quiet as they searched the room for the many cameras that they would never find.

Arthur was pathologically thorough here, as well. It took him over an hour to go through everything in the room. He set up a laptop, hooked it to his gadgets, scanned and scanned and scanned. Mr. Eames took the television apart and put it back together. He removed the hard drive of the in-room computer and replaced it.

Between them, they found nothing. After a while, Mr. Eames started to unpack his work station. He seemed at ease now.

Arthur ... now that young man, he did not seem at ease. He stood in the center of the room, staring at the ceiling, where, in fact, there actually was another camera. Allen switched the monitor to that one and looked down at him. He started back in his chair when Arthur seemed to meet his eyes. Then he remembered that there was no way he could know. Absolutely no way.

The young man kept scowling directly up at him.

** ** ** **

Eames let himself relax into the room. This job was going to be a cakewalk. Get into the mark's head, look for murderous intent. Murderous intent was easy because usually one didn't have to look too far. People planning a murder were either pathological, or ridden by guilt. If they were pathological, this manifested almost immediately in dreams. If they were not pathological, and they felt any kind of guilt or remorse for what they were considering, that also manifested.

This job might take them all of five minutes, topside. He might not even have to forge. But he would take the money anyway.

He and Arthur checked the room for bugs and found none. This was standard. They always checked and rarely turned anything up. Yet Arthur would not fucking relax, and that was making him nervous, in turn. Arthur was all hard angles, with that line between his eyebrows that showed up when he was concerned, annoyed, in deep thought, hungry, had to piss, about to be shot in the head, or really anything.

"We're done, Arthur," Eames said. But really it was a question. They were not done until Arthur said they were done. Because if he had a feeling, then it was wise to mind it.

"I know," Arthur said. But he kept staring at the light above him, as if waiting for it to pop down and tell him hello. Finally, Arthur released the sigh he'd been holding in. "You're right," he said. "Yeah. It's clean."

Eames mimicked his sigh helplessly. Likewise, if Arthur said the room was clean, then it was. Unless someone had technology that could outwit theirs, and if that was the case, they were fucked either way. Arthur's gadgets were pretty cutting edge.

"I'm tired," Arthur said. "I just need a shower."

"Go on, then," Eames said.

Arthur did, but he took his gadgets with him. So it was one of those times, then, Arthur with his sharp edges. He was dangerous when he was like this. Eames meant to wear him down before the job.

** ** ** **

Allen stared into the eyes that seemed to stare back into his through the bathroom mirror.

Here, the "boy" didn't seem so boyish. Up close, Allen could discern fine lines around his eyes, a scar on his forehead. But it was mostly the hard, aged look in his eyes that made him seem like a man twice his age in experience.

His looks were nice, above average, maybe. Staring directly at him, with no social incentive to look away, he looked his fill. Arthur's face was angular, with a classic, enviable jawline and even features. His eyes were dark. And he stared back, like he knew. He reached his hand out to the mirror and drew his fingers down, as if he was the sensor.

Allen held his breath.

Then Arthur shrugged and smiled, like he'd caught himself over reacting. He had dimples, and once again looked like a little kid. Allen relaxed and sat back in his chair. So this was his extractor. This was part of the team that would save his life. It was good. Men like this should be shrewd, but they should not be cruel or paranoid.

He impassively watched him strip, as he had watched the girl. (She was "the girl" in his mind. Using her name made him feel too intimate after having watched her.) What he had taken for a scrawny youth was actually quite different under the clothes.

These muscles were hard, tight like cords and wires. With his shirt off, he looked broader, stronger. He was scarred, too. Nicks and lines marked his ribs, chest and shoulders. When he turned to the side to reach for a towel, Allen saw one long, twisted scar from his back to his front. This one looked like it had been stitched quickly, and poorly.

Allen turned on all three monitors when Arthur got into the shower, and watched the team simultaneously. The girl was building a city model out of foam and clay. Mr. Eames was staring out the double doors to the city, drinking a glass of wine from the mini bar. Arthur was fastidiously washing his hair, and decidedly not assembling a gun or shooting drugs.

Arthur came out of the shower, wiped the steam away, and brushed his teeth. He dressed in new clothes, dark pants, a plain button down shirt, as if he was going back out even though it was night time. He towel dried his hair and didn't glance at the mirror again.

In the hotel room, he told Mr. Eames "all yours," as he passed him by without glancing at him.

The two of them seemed to work around each other. Allen could sense no animosity between them, but a benign familiarity. Or so it seemed at first.

When Mr. Eames went into the shower, he watched again.

This man's eyes were completely unreadable. They were dark grey, and revealed absolutely nothing of what was going on inside. He did stare into the mirror, but it didn't seem like a challenge, the way Arthur's stare had. This man was looking at himself, and nothing more. As if he was memorizing himself.

Allen thought then about what a forger must really be.

When Mr. Eames took his clothes off, he revealed a much broader, more powerful build than Arthur. This man had the body of a fighter, someone who worked at it. He was also scarred and tattooed. When he turned around, Allen saw the lines that marked his back. They looked deliberate. Someone had hurt him in the past, perhaps badly.

Thus far, Allen felt comfortable with these three. They were cautious, but sane. Clever, but not smarmy. The girl was young, smart, quiet. Arthur was thorough, but now at ease. Mr. Eames was unreadable, but didn't seem dangerous. These were not unpredictable people.

This all changed the moment Mr. Eames got dressed and came out of the bathroom.

** ** ** **

Allen had been watching the girl for a moment, who had gone on to drawing, listening to an iPod. He switched over to the two men, and then everything changed.

Arthur was standing at the foot of the bed, one knee braced against it, writing something in a notebook. "Hey," he said, "Eames. Listen, I..."

And then Eames came up behind him and shoved him forward. It was a hard shove, full of violence, nothing playful about it. Arthur lost his grip on the notebook, which went flying. He fell face down onto the bed in an ungraceful sprawl.

Eames's face was unreadable as he stood at the foot of the bed, awaiting a reaction.

Allen tensed in his chair. He'd seen a lot of insanity, in his days of watching. He'd watched people fuck, make love, get high, fight, hurt each other. He hated watching people hurt each other, and it looked like it was about to happen. These two men weren't a graceful team after all, working off each other. There was anger between them, unpredictability. His heart sank, for them, but especially for himself. How could he trust men that couldn't even trust each other?

Arthur didn't get up from the bed. When he looked over his shoulder at Eames, the primary emotion on his face was one of understanding and acceptance. It said, _I know what comes next._ Allen had seen that look  
before, or something like it.

Eames took his own belt off and looped it around his hand.

Allen felt sick. He was not prepared to watch an assault. He felt a moral obligation to stop it, and he knew exactly how. He'd done this before. He would just call in a complaint to the front desk. 'The people in 5010 are being noisy, something violent is going on.' Sure, then they'd know that they were being watched. But Allen would never be implicated. He would call off the job, find different people, and never have to deal with them again.

He lifted his phone.

And then Arthur laughed.

It was a small laugh, just a short huff of breath. Allen might have mistaken it for a sound of annoyance. But then Arthur smiled before turning his face back into the bed. Again, the dimples briefly made him look too young for this. The cameras were fine enough to pick up the flush spreading across the bridge of his nose, and his cheekbones, before he turned away.

Eames dropped the belt and got on the bed. He hauled Arthur up by the belt of his pants, pulling him to his knees. From behind, he wrapped one solid, wide arm around Arthur's slender neck. His other hand crept around to the front of his pants, where he pressed his palm hard enough to elicit a choked off sound from him.

Allen couldn't help focusing on his large hand. This was not an act of violence. Or – it was – but at least it was consensual in some strange way he could not understand. Fuzzy handcuffs, ball gags, he had seen those kinds of things occasionally, when people role-played. This had a different edge to it.

Eames left off pressing his hand into Arthur's crotch to undo Arthur's belt and whip it from the loops. He did it so hard that Arthur almost toppled; Eames caught him with a hand around his throat. Then he undid the button and zip of his jeans and pushed his hand inside.

His other hand grabbed Arthur by the back of his hair and pulled, exposing the long, vulnerable line of his throat.

The only sound was the slide of Eames's hand in Arthur's pants, and the short, jerky breaths from Arthur. Eames was silent. He looked focused, like a man hard at work.

Without warning, he pulled his hand out of Arthur's pants and shoved him back down again. He stood again at the edge of the bed and carelessly tugged Arthur's jeans off, yanking so hard that he pulled Arthur halfway down the bed. When Arthur, now just in boxer-briefs and his button down shirt, crawled back up, Eames put a hand on the back of his neck and pressed his face into the sheets.

Allen heard a muffled cry; he couldn't tell if it was from pain or something else.

Still pushing him into the bed with his hand against his neck, Eames reached around in front of him again. Allen couldn't see his hand, but it was clear what he was doing. It wasn't gentle or slow. Arthur writhed into the bed, into Eames's hand. He was saying words that Allen couldn't make out.

"You need it," Eames said.

Arthur nodded, his face buried in the sheets.

Eames pulled him up by the hair again. It looked painful and Allen actually cringed. There was no beauty in this act, no finesse. He held Arthur hard, working him furiously and yanking his hair at the same time.

It was just lust, then, Allen thought. Just two men in a tense situation, working through some kind of desire that the senator did not understand, but also didn't judge.

It seemed this would be over quickly, but then Eames let up, and backed off. Arthur abruptly stopped moving, and lay there panting, his face turned to the side. Then he braced on his elbows and looked over his shoulder at Eames.

"Why'd you stop?" he asked, irritated.

"Because we're not finished."

Arthur sat up. His shirt was twisted around him, he was panting hard, flushed and overwrought. Eames closed in on him, cupping his jaw hard. It was not a caress. The kiss that followed looked more like a claim than anything else. Yet Arthur leaned into it, his eyes closed tight, as if something pained him. He ran his hands up Eames's arms, down his back, tracing over the scars that he could probably feel. Allen could see the scars clearly, even from his side view.

Without breaking the kiss, Eames reached for the belts he had discarded earlier, both of them. He took Arthur's hand from his back and jerked him forward.

"What are you..." Arthur began.

Eames looped first one belt around his wrist, then the other around the other wrist.

"Oh," Arthur said, his voice soft.

Eames took him by the shoulders and turned him around so they were facing each other fully. Then he laid him back on the bed and put both arms above his head. This he did carefully, as if he were arranging a piece of art. When he was finished, he stood up, went to the side of the bed, and grabbed both belts.

Arthur cried out as Eames dragged him up to the top of the bed, but didn't struggle against it. He allowed this, though his eyes were very wide when Eames fastened the belts to the two separate light fixtures above the headboard.

Eames disappeared for a moment into the bathroom. Allen watched Arthur carefully, awaiting his reaction to all of this. He was utterly shocked when Arthur easily freed one hand in order to scratch his nose, and then quickly and efficiently stuck it back into the belt before Eames came back in.

Some tight band of panic in Allen's chest finally eased off. There was nothing non-consensual about this, and yet Allen felt, to his heart, that every reaction was still genuine. Arthur wasn't faking his straining muscles, his darting eyes, the sweat that was starting to collect at his hairline. It wasn't an assault. But it also wasn't a game.

Eames came back with a tube in his hand. The senator didn't need to read the label to know what it was. He focused instead now on Eames, who still had a shuttered, unreadable expression on his face. He looked determined but impassive, like this was just something he had to get out of the way.

For the life of him, he could not figure these two out. How in the world were they supposed to separate this part of their lives from the work they were supposed to be doing for _him_? How could they be who they were in this moment, and then tomorrow do a job on which his life depended? This was too intense to be a separate entity. It was too much a part of who they were. He understood that.

Eames kneeled between Arthur's thighs, negligently pushing them apart. He rubbed him through his underclothes, pressing down a little. Arthur bucked into the touch and then settled into a rhythm. This went on for a few moments, until Eames wordlessly removed Arthur's underclothes. Then, with great care that seemed out of place, unbuttoned Arthur's shirt, as if it was an afterthought. He did this slowly, and smoothed the open shirt to his sides, petting down his ribs as he did so.

And then Eames began to strip himself. Arthur watched him silently, but with blatant hunger. When he was done, he settled back between Arthur's legs. Then came the only indication that he was acutely mindful of what he was about to do. He glanced very briefly at Arthur's face, with a look in his eyes that hinted at asking permission.

 _Say yes,_ Allen thought. He didn't know why he thought that; it alarmed him.

Arthur's returning nod was nearly imperceptible. A lesser camera would never have picked it up.

Allen couldn't see Eames's hands from his side view, but it wasn't necessary to, in order to know what was going on. The way Arthur's body jerked up, the way his eyes clamped shut and his mouth fell open. Eames placed a solicitous hand on his lower stomach, almost soothing.

When Arthur's eyes were closed, Eames started watching him in earnest. This was intriguing, because here he became readable, just a little. His eyes looked almost fond. His mouth quirked up at the corners. It looked a little bit like affection, something that bordered on amusement. Or maybe familiarity? Allen honestly couldn't tell, he could not untangle this dynamic.

When Arthur opened his eyes, Eames went closed off again, immediately. His demeanor changed; he was distant, working. Arthur may or may not have seen this change. A barely noticeable smile flitted across his lips, just a trace of dimples in his cheeks, and then it was gone. He fell back against the pillow and shut his eyes again.

The only sound the mics picked up were the helpless ones from Arthur's lips. Eames remained entirely silent. 

"Oh jesus, Eames, what are you _doing_?" he managed to gasp out before all other words left him. He pulled against the restraints, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, at nothing.

Eames kept working his hands, slow, but hard. He watched, seeming enthralled, as Arthur start to fall apart, pinned between his hands.

"Too much?" Eames asked, his voice low and dark.

Arthur's answer was a long, drawn out moan.

Allen didn't know why he switched to the camera on the ceiling. Maybe he wanted to understand. He wanted to see if this sharp young man was still so sharp like this. If he would know he was being watched.

Arthur clearly did not. He just looked mindless. It was something that Allen had never felt, not even on his best nights with his wife – whom he did love very much. He'd always thought that sex was wonderful, fun, passionate. He felt like he had been adventurous and a good lover. But he had never been as far gone as the young man he was staring down at. He would never allow himself to go there, to that place where anything could happen. The way Arthur was letting himself be exposed, touched, played with... it was too rough, he was too vulnerable. His reactions were too unpredictable.

Since Arthur didn't know he was being watched, it didn't feel like voyeurism to watch him come, in ecstasy that looked like pain. Allen didn't feel like any kind of pervert or monster. He wasn't getting off on it, and he wasn't judging it. The sweat beading and rolling down Arthur's face, the flush across his cheeks, lips red and parted, and those sightless eyes, rolling back until only the whites showed – these things just intrigued him.

When he tilted his head back, Allen saw both freckles and scars along his clavicles. The dichotomy made him catch his breath. What kind of people were these men? How could they be so young, and so old at the same time?

Arthur's eyes flew open so quickly that Allen jumped back in his chair, at once afraid of having been caught. But then Eames was covering his view of Arthur, leaning over him, kissing him so deeply that the room went dead silent. Not even the sound of breathing.

Allen switched the camera back to the side view one.

Eames was leaning on one arm, Arthur now had both legs wrapped around his waist. He pulled Arthur's arms out of the restraints and rubbed them briskly. He kissed him again, long and slow, before starting to move.

There was nothing gentle about this, either. The entire bed shuddered, the light fixtures rattled against the headboard. Allen thought of his wife, how small she was against him – how small Arthur looked underneath Eames. He had never had sex like this in his life, it was too brutal. He didn't think he ever could. It didn't look safe; it looked painful.

But it couldn't have been, because Arthur clearly approved, and was vocal about it. He got louder when Eames shifted position and came up on his knees. Mostly "yes, please, god," and a litany of deeply satisfied groans that seemed pulled out of the center of him.

Eames on the other hand was mostly quiet, seemingly happy to just watch the man beneath him. He leaned over him, pinning him with his body and his eyes, like every part of him was delving into Arthur. He shifted restively, as if trying to find the best way to wrench those sounds out of him. He pulled one thigh flush against his chest, rubbed his cheek against his calf, his gaze never wavering.

"Please," Arthur panted, "please, Eames, it's so good." Arthur reached up and pulled him closer, yanked his head down for another violent kiss.

Allen watched, fascinated and unblinking. How could they be this way, when Arthur didn't even call Eames by his first name? He used the last name as if they were still business partners, as if this was something formal, a transaction. But his body told a completely different story. Did Arthur even know his partner's first name? If so, why didn't he use it? Allen concluded that the two of them must have been business partners first, and lovers later, and that perhaps it would have been awkward to start using his first name so late in the game.

Eames pulled back and kissed the sole of Arthur's foot, the arch, the instep, and moved to his ankle, which he licked and kissed wetly. The sound he got from Arthur at that even gave Allen a shiver. He ran his hands all over him, from his thighs, to his stomach, chest, over his throat and down his arms. He leaned forward, kissed his belly, his chest, his neck and jaw. Every kiss was wet and loud.

It seemed that once he started peppering him with kisses all over, he couldn't stop. The look of concentration finally broke, and Eames looked a little lost, a little out of control. As if he couldn't help where his mouth landed. He lifted Arthur's hand, kissed his palm, sucked his fingers and mouthed the inside of his wrist. Then he pinned that arm and leaned forward, thrusting faster, and licked the center of Arthur's chest, bit his throat and left a mark. He buried his face in Arthur's neck as he moved and murmured something that even Allen's mics couldn't pick up. When he shifted back again, Arthur's neck was red, scratched from stubble, and bruised.

Allen thought of his wife, how he hadn't kissed her all over like that since the early days of their marriage. He wanted to live long enough to do that. Next time, if there was a next time. If they could save his life.

Arthur grabbed at Eames, ran his hands over his shoulders, cupped the back of his head and leaned up. He didn't say a word but everything about him read " _please_ " and Eames obligingly kissed him again, and again, and again.

The pace was hard, but he'd been wrong to think of it as violent. The kissing at least was an act of reverence. So was the petting and the stroking; they left no part untouched. Arthur traced the map of scars on Eames's back, gripped his arms and his hair. Eames rubbed at Arthur's thighs, his ribs, kneaded into his hips, his stomach. Purposefully, maybe even almost tenderly, he licked at the twisted scar on his side.

"So beautiful, Arthur," Eames said, staring down at him. "So beautiful."

It was like a light being turned on inside of Allen's head: that this was something beautiful, at least to them. The scars, the pain, the sharp edges, the brutality that still didn't lack affection. Maybe it was something he wasn't supposed to have.

If he even lived to explore it.

The bed shook hard beneath them, creaking in rhythm. Arthur cried out once, tensed like a thrumming wire and went quiet. Eames watched him again, as if he was memorizing it. He followed soon, clinging to Arthur like he was drowning but wanted to drown further. He dropped his head onto Arthur's shoulder, with harsh, panting sounds more reminiscent of sobs.

He rocked into him slowly after that, one arm under his shoulders, the other braced beside his head. Arthur kissed his neck, arm, shoulder, any place he could reach.

When, after some indeterminable amount of time (the senator had long since lost track,) Eames moved off of Arthur, it was completely without preamble. He just kneeled, then sat up, slid off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom without a word.

Arthur was left sprawled on the bed, red mouth still parted and panting, eyes closed. His chest and stomach were pink and scratched, marked with bites, kisses, and bruises from Eames's grip. Finally, slowly, a smile curled his lips. He looked sated, like the cat that had eaten the cream. Allen thought that perhaps a tasteless metaphor. He switched the camera to overhead and looked down at the young man. He felt alien, out of his skin, and for the first time since he had begun with the cameras, he felt intrusive. Watching the act of sex, or whatever word they would use to term their coupling, hadn't stirred this feeling in him. But watching Arthur alone, spread out and naked and marked, made him feel uninvited.

He switched the camera again when Eames came back into the room, holding a hand towel. Eames kneeled on the bed beside Arthur, and for a moment, just looked at him. Then he gently laid a hand on his stomach while he wiped the sweat from his damp cheeks, his forehead and his hair. He leaned down to kiss him while he moved the towel lower, cleaning off his stomach and chest.

"Thanks," Arthur said, when Eames released him.

Allen wasn't sure which part the gratitude was for.

Eames just nodded, even though Arthur's eyes were closed. Then he discarded the towel and climbed into the bed. Arthur shivered and pulled the blanket over him, up to his chin.

"Cold?" Eames asked.

Arthur nodded and yawned. Eames gave him his share of the blanket, doubling it up.

There was no cuddling, no fitting together warm and comfortable. Eames just placed his hand on Arthur's stomach, and Arthur rested his hand over it. Eames reached up and turned off the lights with his free hand.

Allen switched to night-vision cameras. Some people did their dirty work with the lights off.

However, when neither man moved for a long enough time, he found himself dozing off in his chair, as if taking part in their comfort.

** ** ** **

Arthur slept for a while. He was a good judge of time, even in his sleep. He had better be, after all the time he'd spent sleeping, dreaming, and judging the passage of time inside and outside of dreams. So he guessed he'd been out for about an hour when he felt that weird, sickly, burning sensation again. It felt squirmy in his chest, and hot on his face.

That only meant one thing: He was being watched. He didn't understand it, because the room had come up clean. Arthur was vigilant, but he liked to think he wasn't paranoid, in general. Currently, he felt paranoid.

Also, well-fucked, exhausted, boneless, and strangely safe. He had an instinct for when someone wanted him dead—it had kept him _not_ dead for years—and he didn't feel it now. He just felt eyes crawling all over him. He felt weirdly embarrassed, shamed in a way he never was after one of these little games.

He glanced at the clock. It was 12:02 AM. He sat up in the dark, feeling the back of his neck prickle.

"What is it?" Eames asked, on alert.

Arthur didn't know what to say. If they were being watched, they were also being listened to. Eames turned on the light, looking concerned.

Finally, Arthur gave a shaky smile and said, "Nightmare."

If Eames was surprised, or disbelieved him, he was smart enough not to show it.

Arthur turned to face him, and snaked both arms around him, pressing them both back down to the bed. This did surprise Eames; he felt it in the sudden tension of his shoulders. They shared a bed, but they both liked space. Neither liked the confinement of arms around them all night. Eames got too hot and sweaty, Arthur got too fidgety.

Arthur curled against him and pressed his lips against his ear.

"I know there's a camera somewhere," he whispered. Eames tensed even further. "Don't say a word," Arthur went on. "Don't move from the bed. Laugh."

After a second of silence, Eames laughed. "It was good for me, too."

"Good," Arthur whispered. "When I get up, pretend to go back to sleep."

"Yes," Eames murmured. "You can fuck me tomorrow morning."

Arthur pulled away and said, "I need to pee. Go back to sleep."

Eames did as he was told and turned over, closing his eyes.

With the lights still off, Arthur went into the bathroom. He didn't know where the cameras were, where he would be safest. He felt like they were everywhere.

Before he took any real, irreversible action, he thought it out, very quickly and in detail. He actually did need to pee, and this he did while trying to forget that someone was probably watching. Instead, he focused on what he knew about the building he was in.

He'd downloaded the blueprints in the airport, before even checking in, and committed them to memory. So he knew all of the elevators, stairs, the garage, parking, basement, storage rooms. The storage rooms he considered briefly. Any of those could be a watch-station.

Then he remembered the one detail that had intrigued him: the top room. Only one elevator went to it, and you needed a keycard to reach it.

He finished up and then went to the sink to wash his hands. He didn't look into the mirror as he did so.

His scanners had all come up clean, not a blip. Maybe he relied on them too much. Before this job, he'd been good at making things work with his hands.

He could break the glass, but that would be noisy, and too alarming. Arthur grabbed the dental floss and pulled off a long string of it. He wound it around his fingers and fitted it over the top of the mirror, where it attached to the wall. When he pulled down, the mirror budged, just a bit. It wasn't just glued onto the wall; it was fixed onto it through some kind of contraption. When he tugged, it moved away easily.

Arthur filled a bathroom cup full of water. When he had the mirror away from the wall enough so that he could fit one finger behind it, he dumped the glass of water behind the mirror.

The sound of tech shorting out was unmistakable.

He left the bathroom, sweeping his clothes out of the suitcase on the way. He was already stepping into them when Eames turned the light on, awake and alarmed.

Arthur didn't have to tell him anything. Eames was out of bed and getting dressed.

"Rewrite the key," Arthur said. Eames could forge anything. A keycard would not even present him with a challenge.

They were out the door seven minutes later.

** ** ** **

Allen woke up to the static buzz of one of cameras. He focused immediately, leaning forward in his chair, staring at the blank screen. It was the bathroom one.

Heat flashed all over his body, sweat collected on his back within seconds. He looked at the other monitors, frantic for movement in any of the rooms. The girl was still awake, watching television and drinking a bottle of water.

The room where the men had been was empty.

"Shit," Allen said. His voice came out in a shaky whine. _Shit, oh shit, how long have they been gone?_

He knew they'd found out. The scenario knitted itself together in his mind. Arthur had found the bathroom camera. They'd left the room to look for him. Fear consumed him, and a terrible feeling of shame, because now he would actually have to face them. Now _he_ was the perpetrator.

He forced himself to calm down and think. The tower room was his secret, inaccessible. Even if they did find out about it, and even if they did manage to figure out that this was the camera control room, there was no way they could get up here.

And even if they _could._ Not likely, but if. Then they still couldn't tie the cameras to his name. Not if he got out of here in time.

He grabbed his briefcase and started to rise from his chair. His legs shook.

The door banged open. Allen dropped his briefcase and had just a second to cry out in fear. He didn't know what he saw coming at him, which of them it was. It was too fast. He felt a flash of pain and then everything went dark.

** ** ** **

Allen came awake slowly, limbs heavy and stiff. His eyes were bleary and his head throbbed. He struggled to move his arms and couldn't. Soon he realized that it was because he was tied to a chair.

He snapped his head up. He was still in the control room, but he was not alone.

The two men looked different in person than they had on the monitors.

Eames was broader, handsomer, and more powerfully built than he'd looked on screen. He was pacing, unaware that Allen had woken up. He looked fretful and, much worse than that, angry. Terrifically angry.

And Arthur, the extractor – though clearly an actual point man – looked, in some way, just as youthful as he had on screen. Maybe moreso, with the faint, worried blush that colored his cheeks. (Allen felt sickening guilt to know that he was the cause of that blush.) However he was now dressed in an iron grey suit, and his wavy hair was slicked back severely from his face, giving him a much harder look. He toyed carelessly with a glock 17 that he held in both hands, turning it over and over. A line creased his forehead.

"Ah, there we are," Eames said.

Allen looked back at Eames and shrank away as he advanced. He wished he could sink entirely into the chair he was tied to.

"Give me a chance to explain," Allen begged. "I didn't see … I didn't see. I didn't."

"Oh, you didn't?" Eames asked. "Dare I ask what you didn't see?"

Arthur sighed and stood up. The look on his face was one of worry, professional concern. But it also didn't mask the plain mortification that shone through. "You watched Ariadne, too," he said.

This may or may not have been a deflection. Allen had observed people enough to understand their motives. He was a politician and had gotten very good at this. If Arthur could convince himself that he hadn't been the focus of Allen's watching, he could be angry on the girl's behalf instead.

"I had to make sure," Allen said. "I didn't want to be betrayed. A man in my position... I have to take precautions. You must understand that. Please. _Please._ "

Arthur aimed the gun. He looked bored now, or he tried to. He still couldn't hide the blush though, and Allen felt genuinely sorry, somewhere beneath his mortal fear.

"I needed to know you were on my side," Allen said. "I bought you boys, paid you to do a job for me..."

"I'm not your _boy_ ," Arthur said, with unexpected venom. "Why shouldn't I just end you? Just for annoying me?"

"You can't," Allen said. "You can't, you won't. Please. I didn't mean anything by... I didn't even really _see_... nothing happened! Please! Just let me explain."

Eames came to stand beside Arthur. He shoved both hands in his pockets and looked decidedly unnecessary to Allen's fate. He clearly placed this decision in his partner's hands.

"Please," Eames said, "don't let my partner's boyish good looks fool you." (Arthur rolled his eyes at this.) "He's quite polite, and a posh dresser, but he is also completely unconcerned with getting blood on his clothes, and he is without mercy. It's upsetting sometimes, really."

Allen considered, really, deeply considered what to say next before he even opened his mouth. He weighed them both against each other, weighed their words, their stances, their motives. Eames, he realized, wasn't handing over some pride or machismo back to Arthur, in light of what Allen had witnessed. He was actually telling the truth. Allen needed no further proof than the steadiness of Arthur's gun hand. Whatever went on between the two of them in hotel rooms across the continents, Arthur was the assassin in this dynamic. They were both dangerous men. He understood that now. But if he was going to die, Arthur would be the one pulling the trigger.

"Is there a recording of it?" Eames asked.

"No," Allen said. "No, no, never. Everything is in this room. I only tape things when I need information for playback. I just needed to know that you hadn't been bought out."

"And Ariadne," Eames went on, his tone questioning, light. "Is there a camera in her bathroom, too?"

"Yes," Allen answered. Only the truth, from now on. If anything would save him, it would be that. "I didn't watch her shower." Okay, so that one was a lie.

As if to prove this, one of his screens came alive, lit up with the image of the young girl in the shower, her hair pinned up, water running down her slender shoulders.

Eames glanced at it, and then back to Allen, his eyebrows raised.

Allen did not understand how that screen had come to life like that, and why it was showing her in the shower again. He really _hadn't_ taped it.

"It's... there's nothing sexual about it. I didn't... I don't... _get off_ on it. I'm married. I just have to make sure." Injustice burned inside of him, suddenly. This wasn't fair. Getting caught wasn't fair, when he was only trying to save himself from ruin and murder. "You don't understand!" he shouted.

Eames just continued staring at him, his eyebrows raised, expression mild. Arthur scowled at him, impatient, still pointing the gun.

"You can't understand," he went on. "The three of you, always undercover, doing your, your dream invasion thing. You all watch, too! You go into other people's heads and watch their secrets. And you do it for money. I'm doing this to protect my life, my _life!_ You don't know what it's like, to constantly be under threat..."

"Oh, no," Arthur snapped, with a sneer that did not look youthful or pretty on him, "I guess we don't know what that's like. Please enlighten us."

"I don't do it because I like it, I don't do it for money. I don't do it for any perverted reason. There's no sexual aspect..."

As he said this last part, another monitor lit up, this one an image of Arthur, just Arthur, his face lit up in ecstasy, his throat bared, mouth open and pliant.

Allen felt horrified, and confused. He really hadn't taped anything, why was this all replaying?

Arthur, for his part, went pale and still; even the flush of embarrassment drained from his face. His hand tightened on the gun. Eames lost his calm, casually menacing demeanor. His hands curled into fists and he stalked over to Allen's chair.

"I swear, I swear," Allen babbled. "There's nothing on tape, I don't know why it's doing that, I swear."

Eames jerked him out of his chair. The restraints fell away from his arms, as if they'd never actually tied him there to begin with. "You watched." Eames growled in his ear. It was the most terrifying voice Allen had ever heard. "You watched. The whole. Fucking. Thing. You didn't even _blink_ , did you? Did you like it?" he hissed.

"Eames," Arthur said. His voice sounded shaky. "Come on."

"No," Allen said. Maybe it was the wrong answer because Eames shook him by the collar, like a rag doll. "It wasn't, it wasn't like that, I didn't mean to."

"Did you get off on it?" Eames pressed. "Is it that kind of thing? You're a fucking pervert?"

"Eames," Arthur warned, "please."

Eames relented, and let Allen fall to the ground. Allen was surprised to find his vision going blurry, this time with tears. He was afraid for his life, yes. These men would kill him. They wouldn't ruin his name or his work; he'd simply be removed. And his death wouldn't be an act of betrayal, either. That, he finally realized, was what hurt him the most. The fact that his best friend, his partner, a man he had loved and counted on, would betray him.

"You watched everything," Eames said, "all night. You saw..."

" _I saw an act of trust!_ "

Both men fell silent. The only sound was Allen's own shocked sobbing.

He took a second to collect himself, curled up on the floor, about to die. At least he would die not whimpering like a puppy. And he would explain, first.

"All right?" he tried again, desperate. "I didn't mean to see it, I had no idea. You could have been working for Mackie, you could have switched sides. He's my best friend, don't you understand that? Of course you don't. You don't know what it is to be betrayed by the one person you think _can't_ betray you. Yes, you're criminals, you know what it means to be hunted. You know how it feels to be sold out. But until one of _you_ ," he stopped to point an accusing finger at both of them, "betrays the other, you can't know what it feels like."

He stopped, catching his breath. Both men stared at him. Arthur's gun hand wavered. He glanced sideways to Eames, who glanced sideways at him.

"I haven't even told my wife," Allen went on. "I haven't told her about Mackie, about the death threats. She doesn't know about this room. No one knows, it's just me. Yes, I've seen people have sex before. It doesn't interest me. All that interests me is what people are doing when they think they're alone. It's the only way I can know them. There is no one to trust, when your partner is out to kill you. _No one._ It's not as if I'm watching porn. I didn't watch the two of you and think about... about _that._ I watched and I thought, 'I don't understand.' I don't. I'd never let... I'd never be able to..."

He stopped again, and looked at Arthur. That delicate flush was once again creeping across his cheeks. He looked a little unbalanced.

"I don't know what it is between the two of you," Allen said. "I don't understand what it would take to allow that. If I had thought it was unsafe, I would have called the front desk. I almost did. So fragile." He was babbling now, talking mostly to himself.

"God damn it, I'm not..." Arthur began.

"Not you," Allen said. He was tired, exhausted really, ready to end this. If they had to kill him, then so be it. This was too hard. "Not you. No, never you. Just what I saw." He smiled now, because at least they wouldn't play with him first. At least his heart wouldn't have to be broken by his best friend. "You're so lucky," he said.

Until the day he died, he would never be sure if that was a smirk he'd seen on Arthur's face right before the unthinkable happened. If he had looked maybe a little amused as he glanced at Eames before aiming his glock at his own head.

Arthur pulled the trigger and collapsed.

"No!" Allen shouted. "What! Why!" Shame, guilt, confusion, all twisted up inside of him. He couldn't understand this. He looked to Eames, terrified, _horrified._

"Goodbye, Mr. Allen," Eames said. Then he pulled his own gun and shot himself in the head, too.

Allen was left alone in the control room, surrounded by his monitors which now all lit up with the images of all the people he had watched over the years. Everyone he hadn't trusted, in various situations. Sex, violence, fighting, making up, doing nothing, sharing secrets. He caught glimpses of the girl in the shower, and glimpses of Arthur, and Eames, and toward the end, images of each of them ending their lives over this.

He wanted nothing more than to be out of the control room, but he could not leave. As the images flashed by, he screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

When he looked down at the floor, the bodies of the two men were gone.

** ** ** **

Senator Allen woke up from a terrible dream. He was grateful, as always, that his wife was beside him. He ached from the night before, a good ache. She had left marks this time. He would have to cover those up before going out to greet the public, of course.

A few weeks ago she had asked him if he would watch some free porn on the hotel television with her. He'd tried to but immediately felt awful, sick in his gut. He couldn't watch people do this anymore. It felt wrong. But he was happier with her, anyway.

Selling his hotel had been one of the best things he'd done. He had personally disassembled the control room and destroyed everything in it. The money from the hotel had, in part, helped his campaign. Another piece of the funds had gone to a shelter for abused women – very publicly of course, which had also helped the campaign. People loved things like that.

He'd made John Mackie his campaign manager, and since then, it seemed that everything had started to look up.

Every time he doubted, he had only to open up the carefully folded note he now kept in his wallet, behind his pictures. It read, in small, neat handwriting:

_We redirected the money to our account, so you've already paid us. Mackie was clean, you can trust him. Can he trust you?_

_-A &E_


End file.
